Kate Dennison broke the British pole vault record for the third time this summer at the Meeting de Atletisimo in Madrid on Saturday as she finished second best in a close tussle with Aleksandra Kiryashova.

Dennison cleared the same height as her Russian rival - 4.56 metres - to improve by a centimetre the previous mark she set at the European Team Championships a fortnight ago in Leiria, Portugal.

The 25-year-old Loughborough athlete, who first broke Janine Whitlock's former record of 4.47m in Prague on June 8, lost out on the countback after suffering more failures in her tense duel with Kiryashova.

Jemma Simpson laid down an indicator of how tough it will be to qualify for the Aviva GB team over 800m at next weekend's World Championships in Birmingham as she posted the fastest outdoor time by a Briton this year in coming second to Morocco's Hasna Benhassi.

Fellow Briton Marilyn Okoro was third while Jenny Meadows was less successful, coming home eighth.

Lee McConnell, with a time of 52.29sec, claimed second place over 400m behind Christine Amertill, who won in 51.77sec.

Former world junior champion Mark Lewis-Francis posted a season's best of 10.38sec in his men's 100m heat before placing sixth in the final.

Lewis-Francis, who missed all of last summer's season through injury, knows he faces an uphill task to make the national team for Berlin, where the championships get under way on August 15.

Welshman David Greene, Europe's fastest 400m hurdles performer this year, was given a taste of the quality of opposition he can expect in the German capital, when pushed into third place.

Greene, currently ranked 10th fastest in the world, clocked 49.19sec in the testing conditions at the latest stop on the IAAF World Athletics Tour, but he could not match the speed of winner Isa Phillips, who came home 0.44secs ahead of fellow Jamaican Danny McFarlane.

World indoor silver medallist and UK record holder Chris Tomlinson finished a disappointing eighth (8.10m) in the long jump while James Brewer was sixth over 1500m (3:39.65).

In the women's 100m, Montell Douglas, who last summer lowered the 27-year-old UK record to 11.05sec, was fifth

in a time of 11.75sec.

The USA's Gloria Asumno won in 11.40sec as the sprinters struggled in a strong headwind.